


Falling from the Stars

by justabrain



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crowley Was Raphael Before He Fell (Good Omens), Cuddling & Snuggling, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Museums, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Wine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 07:11:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19763146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justabrain/pseuds/justabrain
Summary: A visit to the National Gallery is cut short when Aziraphale accidentally triggers something from Crowley’s past.





	Falling from the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> This work was inspired by and takes pieces of dialogue from the first three installments of retrouvel's beautiful comic on tumblr, which you can read here:  
> https://retrouvel.tumblr.com/tagged/anangelonce

It had taken a great deal of cajoling, along with the promise of wine back at his bookshop afterwards, but Aziraphale had finally convinced Crowley to accompany him to the National Gallery. 

“But we’ve already been there. _Twice_.”

“Ah yes, but the funny thing about the passage of time, my dear, is that things change. It has been almost seventy-five years. That’s nearly an entire human lifespan.”

So it was that the angel and the demon — an unlikely pair that both stood out among the guests milling about — found themselves meandering through the artwork, more often than not commenting on the artists themselves rather than the actual piece.

“Ah, van Gogh! Did you ever meet him, Crowley? He was a lovely young man.”

“Hm? Oh yeah. I suggested the sunflowers.”

Aziraphale peered at him with interest tinged with confusion. “Really? As a… temptation?”

“No!” Crowley turned away from the landscape with the rolling clouds and started toward the next piece. “I was on my way to some rich person, and he was looking all miserable. So I suggested he could get some flowers. Thought they might perk him up a bit.”

With one last glance at the painting, Aziraphale followed after Crowley, a smile playing at his lips. “That was very thoughtful of you,” he said, just loudly enough for Crowley to hear.

Crowley eyed him. “That’s dangerously close to saying—”

“I know, dear,” Aziraphale replied, slipping his hand into Crowley’s. Out of the corner of his eye, Crowley’s cheeks turned a shade more pink. Aziraphale smiled.

As the two proceeded to another room, Crowley scowled at a gallery warder who was watching them with unusual interest. The warder, for his part, was having quite a boring day, and the unusual pair of the slightly portly man in a slightly-out-of-date cream and beige outfit and the gangly man in barely-too-tight black clothes and sunglasses were some of the more interesting guests that had gone by. At the glare from the gangly one, he humphed to himself, and resumed trying to guess where precisely the American tourists on the other side of the room were from.

Crowley knew enough about art to recognize that the room was full of Renaissance paintings. Apart from that, however, they all looked about the same to him: naked children, white people in dramatic poses, paintings supposedly based on religion, but baring little resemblance to the actual events and people in question. 

Crowley sighed, and joined the warder in people watching. He lazily followed Aziraphale around the room as he half-listened to his ramblings about how this piece captured the emotion of the moment exceedingly well, and Michelangelo was really quite a nice man despite his reputation, and oh did you ever get the chance to meet Raphael—

_There’s a crash of lightning, and then the ground falls away and I’m falling, burning, dying. Wings sear with pain and flames, all consuming. An impact echos through the body, now beaten. Bruised. Defeated. Where… where am I? Cold. Empty. It’s so, so empty…_

“Crowley!”

Strange, Crowley thought distantly, that his heart should respond so humanly. His physical one, the one currently attempting to pound its way out of his chest. Racing with nowhere to go, no control, and he couldn’t…

“Crowley, are you all right?”

He couldn’t breathe. Or he was breathing too much. He wasn’t sure which. He had to get out, get out of the room, out of the building, but he couldn’t move, he had no control. _I can’t do it… not again…_

He was moving around the corner, not sure if he was walking or not. The wall, the corner approached, closer and closer, until he was moved around it. Slowly, his breathing was coming back. Funny thing, breathing. Big bags… He was walking now, deliberately but definitely. One leg. The other. First one again.

The small room around the corner was miraculously free of other visitors, and the moment gravity took full force again — or, he realized later, the moment the hands supporting his arms released him — he sank against the wall and then to the floor, burying his face in his arms. He ripped off his glasses and dropped them to the floor.

There was movement beside him, and a hand landed on his shoulder, startling him. 

“It’s all right. You’re safe.”

If he wasn’t so tired, he would have scoffed at the suggestion that things were “all right”. Instead he sighed. 

“Thanks,” he said to the floor.

“Of course, my dear,” Aziraphale replied. “Just let me know when you feel up to leaving.”

“But… whadabout the rest of the… paintings… ’n’ stuff?”

“They can wait. They’ll still be here in another 75 years.” He paused. “Probably.”

A moment passed. “Don’t think I _can_ leave. ‘M tired.”

Aziraphale glanced around the still-abandoned hall, gestured with his arm, and —

They were back in the bookshop.

Crowley half raised his head. “Cheater,” he said with a smirk.

“Tea?” Aziraphale asked, standing.

“No, I’m fine—”

Before he could finish, a steaming mug was pressed into his hands. Ha paused, then despite himself, he embraced the warmth, breathing in the smell of “Chamomile? I didn’t know you kept chamomile around.”

“I… didn’t. But you’ve said you don’t like peppermint, so…” Aziraphale gestured to the mug in Crowley’s hands. He perched himself on the loveseat facing Crowley.

A few minutes of silence passed, punctuated by sips of tea, while the question that Aziraphale felt he had no right to ask hung between them.

“Sorry you saw that,” Crowley finally said.

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Just… _that_. Hasn’t happened for…” Crowley sighed. “For a while. ‘specially not in the middle of the day. Thought it wouldn’t happen again.”

“Would you like to talk about it?”

Crowley examined his mug intently. It was one of Aziraphale’s favorites with the wings. Fitting, though he didn’t realize it. “No. Not now.” He could feel Aziraphale’s disappointment and worry from where he sat. “Maybe… later.”

“I see. Well, can I get anything for you? Some food perhaps? A… a book?”

“All I really want to do now is sleep,” Crowley said, looking up. Aziraphale looked mildly distressed. “Not for very long,” he clarified. “Only a day or two.”

“Oh. All right. I suppose this is good night then,” Aziraphale said, standing.

“Actually, I…” Crowley hugged the mug closer. “I was wondering if I might sleep here instead.”

Aziraphale paused, placed his mug down, and crouched beside him. “Of course, my dear, always. You’re safe here.”

———

On the fourth day, Aziraphale was becoming seriously worried. Not for Crowley’s health, of course. It was simply that Crowley’s internal alarm clock was usually remarkably punctual. If he said he was going to sleep for a month, it was usually accurate within about a day. A year? Give or take a week. But a day or two? Crowley should have been awake ages ago.

Aziraphale had to stop pacing. Instead, he tried to make himself a mug of cocoa, the old fashioned way with no miracling of anything to be the right temperature, and definitely tried not think about his bed upstairs and its occupant.

Cocoa was one of humanity’s better inventions, Aziraphale thought. Right up there with books, crêpes, and telephones — though the later did get a bit sour when they began to get “smart”.Old fashioned telephones, in fact, were one of the few pieces of technology that Aziraphale trusted. Or rather, didn’t actively distrust. Crowley gave him an endlessly hard time about it, too. “Time didn’t actually stop in 1920, you know that, right?” and Aziraphale would smile and say “Yes, but things were much less complicated back then.” and Crowley would roll his eyes and carry on whatever it was he had been doing.

“Oh, bugger,” Aziraphale said, and weighed the pros and cons of finding a towel to mop up the milk on the table, or simply miracling the mess away. He had told himself he was going to make the cocoa without miracles, but one could argue that _cleaning up_ wasn’t part of _making_. On the other hand, he had been trying to use fewer miracles so as not to attract the attention of heaven — they were still mad about the hellfire incident. No need to miracle over spilled milk, right?

He waved his hand, and the milk appeared back in the bottle.

He supposed he could check on Crowley. After all, he had offered his room as a place of safety. He should make sure he was indeed safe. Then again, Crowley liked his privacy and would not be pleased if he woke up to see Aziraphale standing over him.

“He’s fine,” he muttered. “He’s just more tired than he thought he was. He’ll wake up eventually.”

“Who’s waking up?” a voice said from the staircase.

Aziraphale spun around as a smile lit up his face. “Crowley! You’re awake!”

“‘Course I’m awake. I said I was gonna be a couple days, didn’ I?”

“Well, yes, but it’s been _four days._ I was starting to get worried.”

“Huh. Musta been more tired than I thought.”

“Evidently. Would you like anything to drink? Tea? Cocoa?” He paused. “Wine?”

Crowley looked at him reproachfully. “If you think you’re going to get me drunk and then I’ll tell you my whole tragic life and about what _that_ was, it’s not gonna happen, angel.”

“Crowley, you know that’s not what I meant,” Aziraphale said gently.

After a moment, Crowley looked away, then walked over to the loveseat. His foot kicked something on the floor. “My glasses!” He bent down to pick them up. “You know, you really could have just left them at the gallery.”

Aziraphale shrugged as Crowley placed them on the table. “I didn’t think about it, really. They just sort of… came along.”

Crowley returned to the loveseat, sitting on the edge of the cushion. He rested his elbows on his knees and rubbed his face. “Well either way, I’m going to need some wine if I’m going to tell you what happened,” he muttered. A glass appeared in his hand, and he glanced up at Aziraphale expectantly, who paused, then went to one of his cabinets and pulled out a decent bottle. After pouring himself a glass, his cocoa efforts abandoned, he took the glass from Crowley’s hand and filled it as well. He handed the glass back and was about to return the bottle, when Crowley grabbed it from Aziraphale, who let him have it. Aziraphale turned and retrieved a chair.

“We weren’t always damned, obviously.” Crowley started.

Aziraphale nodded. “You were an angel once.”

Crowley let out a breath that was somewhere between a snort and a sigh. “That was a very long time ago.” He was quiet.

“What happened?” Aziraphale prompted.

_The summoning from the Almighty herself. Expecting praise, or further instruction. Instead? anger, rage electric in the air. Crashing, roiling clouds, the strike—_

_All I wanted to do was help._

“I just didn’t… fit in.” He took a sizable drink from the glass Aziraphale had poured for him.

Aziraphale was quiet for a moment. “Did it… did it hurt?”

Crowley smirked. “When I fell from heaven?”

Aziraphale sighed. “Crowley…”

_Falling so far, for so long, bits of myself being torn away. Burning away as I near the ground, the flames rip at my wings, tunic, skin, until I don’t know if I’m becoming part of it or it’s becoming part of me. Devouring from the inside out. And when I open my eyes—_

Crowley reached for the bottle on the floor and refilled his glass, before drinking half of it again. “It uh… burned. It burned a little.” He took another swig until the glass was nearly empty. His shoulder blades ached and stung. “I can still feel it burning, ya know. Just a bit.” He examined the glass in his hands, the wine a deep red, the color of blood, of fire. “Or maybe I’ve gotten used to it,” he said softly, not sure if he wanted Aziraphale to hear or not.

Abandoning his own glass, untouched, Aziraphale stepped forward and sat gently beside Crowley. Crowley’s wings shimmered on the edge of Aziraphale’s vision, tensed, as if bracing himself against being thrown to the earth again. Aziraphale placed his hands at the base of Crowley’s wings.

Crowley sucked air through his teeth as the touch, for a moment, seared with pain. But before either he or Aziraphale could react, the pain subsided into an ache, duller and somehow sweeter than the ache it had replaced. It was an ache, Crowley realized, of healing. 

_That’s_ my _job_ , whispered a distant voice.

He pushed the thought away and leaned into the warmth of Aziraphale’s touch. 

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale sighed. He moved to hold Crowley more closely, one hand around his shoulder, and the other on top of his head. He rested his head against Crowley’s, who leaned into him. Time passed, perhaps more quietly than it already does.

Finally, Aziraphale broke the silence. “I don’t believe we’d met before. You know, back then. In heaven.”

Crowley shrugged. “I wasn’t in heaven much. Spent most of my time among the stars. Creating.”

Aziraphale leaned back to look at him curiously. “But weren’t the stars created by Gabriel and Raphael? Alongside God?”

_It’s empty. So… empty. As if my chest had been ripped apart and my heart, my lungs, my soul have been torn away and crushed into the parched, cracked ground beneath me. I’m afraid, and so utterly alone…_

Crowley swallowed the rest of his wine, and Aziraphale realized Crowley’s hands were shaking.

“Yeah,” he said. “They were.”

Aziraphale furrowed his eyebrows. “Then why—” His eyes widened and his arms dropped from where he had been holding Crowley. “Oh. You— you were— That’s why— Oh, Crow— Raph— I knew he had disappeared soon after finishing the stars, but I never knew— I never thought— Oh, I’m so sorry.” 

“You caught me off guard in the gallery,” he said quietly. “And it all just…”

“I see.” Aziraphale cleared his throat. “What should I, er, call you then?”

“Well I’m not an angel _anymore_ ,” Crowley spat. “I’m a demon. Can’t go around calling a demon by an angel’s name. Upstairs— Someone might get suspicious.” He sighed. “Besides,” he added quietly, “the other name’s too painful.” 

“All right. If you say so. Crowley.” The name felt strange in Aziraphale’s mouth now, as if it had taken on a new meaning. After a moment, he continued. “Do you remember much of before? Of heaven?”

Crowley shrugged. “Some. Not a lot of details. Everything’s all blurry.”

_Peace… It was peaceful among the stars. Warm with the expectation of new lives. My hands and Gabriel’s, working together to shape stars, planets, nebulae. The Almighty smiled as she watched, her gaze warm. Her love fueled and filled the stars._

_“Here, Raphael,” Gabriel had said. “You try.”_

_The starbit was warm and tingled in my hands. When I looked at Gabriel in confusion, he smiled and pretended to blow on it. I followed his lead, breathing life into the new star, and it shot into the sky to join its partner. Alpha Centauri, humans would later call it. In reality two stars bound together, appearing as one._

“Gabriel was… different back then,” he continued. “Kinder. Showed me how to make the stars. He wasn’t so…”

“…so much of a prick?” Aziraphale offered.

Crowley looked at him in surprise, the corner of his mouth tugging upwards. “Something like that.” He was quiet for a moment. “You’re the only one who knows. ‘Cept God of course. Don’t think even Gabriel knows.”

“I guess the Almighty thought one Archangel falling was warning enough.”

Aziraphale sighed and leaned into the corner of the loveseat. _Raphael._ Of course. It was so obvious now. It was a healing that had first prompted the Arrangement. And he had been perhaps a bit too eager to perform the miracle. More eager than any demon rightfully should have been, but no demon rightfully should have considered the Arrangement in the first place. And for all of his inconveniences and annoyances that Crowley had spread, never once had he inflicted any sort of injury upon anyone. As far as Aziraphale was aware, the only time he had directly hurt someone was when he hit Anathema on her bike — and that wasn’t even intentional. Not to mention the hair—

Aziraphale looked over at the sound of Crowley sniffing. 

“I never wanted… I wasn’t trying to…”

“Oh, dear. Shh…” Aziraphale said, placing his hand on Crowley’s back.

After a few moments, Crowley shifted and leaned back, resting against Aziraphale. Crowley rubbed his eyes with his hand. 

“All I ever wanted was for the stars, the earth, for them all to just be _happy_.” His voice broke. “I didn’t want them to suffer. To… to _die_.” He sniffled. Then, carefully, he shifted onto his side and brought his legs up onto the cushions like a small child. 

Aziraphale buried his hand in Crowley’s hair and began stroking gently, rhythmically. His hair was soft, softer perhaps than one might expect from a demon. They sat like that for quite some time, Aziraphale thinking and Crowley remembering. Eventually, Crowley’s breathing began to slow.

“Thank you, Crowley,” Aziraphale finally said softly, unsure if he was even awake or not.

Crowley stirred slightly. “Hm? F’r what?”

“For telling me. For trusting me.”

After a moment, Crowley moved his head so it was resting more squarely on Aziraphale’s chest. He could hear his heartbeat, even and slow. Like the movement of the stars. 


End file.
